Argentina Food&Restaurants

Argentines enjoy a wide variety of Indigenous and Criollo creations, which include empanadas (a stuffed pastry), locro (a mixture of corn, beans, meat, bacon, onion, and gourd), humitas, and yerba mate. Other popular items include chorizo (a pork sausage), facturas (Viennese-style pastry), and dulce de leche, a sort of milk caramel jam. Asado and locro are considered the national dishes. The Argentine barbecue asado, includes suculent types of meat, among them chorizo, sweetbread, chitterlings, and morcilla (blood sausage). Thin sandwiches, known as sandwiches de miga, are also popular. Given that a large portion of Argentines are of Italian, Spanish and French descent, pizzerias and specialized restaurants are very common. Take note that a convention observed in Argentina is to treat the pasta and sauce as separate items. You will see the pasta for one price and then the sauces for an additional charge.

Hotels typically provide a free buffet consisting of coffee, tea, drinkable yoghurt, assorted pastries and toast, fruit, and perhaps cereal. Lunch is a big meal in Argentina, because dinner is not until late: 20:30-21:00 at the earliest, more commonly at 22:00 or even later. Most restaurants do not serve food until then except for pastries or small ham-and-cheese toasted sandwiches, for afternoon tea between 18:00 and 20:00. By the way, North Americans should beware that Argentinians use the term "entrée" to refer to appetizers.

Argentine wine, one of the world's finest. Malbec, Torrontés, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Chardonnay are some of the most sought-after varieties. A traditional drink of Argentina is an infusion called mate. The mate (gourd) or other small cup is filled about three-quarters full with yerba mate, the dried leaves and twigs of the Ilex paraguariensis. The drink, which is rather bitter, is sipped through a metal or cane straw called a bombilla. Drinking mate together is an important social ritual. In small gatherings it is traditional for one mate to be passed from person to person, filled by whoever has the kettle.